© Magdalena Gruber
The AWM office design is bringing together innovative solutions, reused furniture and building materials, cradle-to-cradle certified materials, hempcrete bricks, clay plaster, wooden structures from reclaimed wood, building materials find by urban mining and focus on disassemblable details.
95.6% of all products used in AWM office spaces reconstruction are cradle-to-cradle certified, inspired or reused. Through the whole process urselmann interior followed the 5 “R’s” – ReFuse, ReUse, ReThink, Repair, ReCycle.
ReFuse - Demolition or conversion - this was the question at the start of a special construction project. “We urgently needed more office and work space and therefore decided to convert the third floor of our old administration building, which was no longer usable,” says Patrick Hasenkamp, Technical Operations Manager at AWM. However, it is not only the preservation of the existing building that saves resources.
ReUse (Urban mining) – In the AWM project, approximately 6900 kg reclaimed building materials were used, mined from different public buildings in Germany.
ReThink – Old theater and school chairs were used as wall cladding, reuse cable trays were repurposed as shelving and flower tray. Urselmann interior harvested 80 tons of solid structural wood and turned a part of it into wall substructure, kitchen furniture, cabinets and cladding.
Repair / ReFurbish - Old chairs found in AWM cellar were repaired and brought to life again in workshop area. In the offices refurbished office desks and chairs by Ahrend are used.
ReCycle – All carpets used in AWM are cradle-to-cradle certified, made from recycled materials and further recyclable. Kitchen counter and table tops are made of recycled plastic boards and ceiling acoustic baffles made by recycled PET bottles, old tables from AWM got new tabletops made of recycled textile boards.
The innovation lies in making reused the new normal. In the conventional building industry, small marks of previous use are a reason for declining the handover. In the new era of circular design, those marks are rather telling a story and contribute to the overall design.
Best circular practice can only be achieved in open creative cooperation from design to craftsmanship. At urselmann interior we are a team of building experts working closely together, to rethink the design and building process as we know it.
For this project Petra Jablonická (Architect), Thorsten Gambalat (product design) and Sven Urselmann (carpenter & circularity expert), craftsmen, and many professionals in building and interior sector cooperated.
Urselmann interior designs always with the future in mind. All of the design decisions are taken with consideration of the future need for change or reconstruction of the space. Therefore working with on plaster electricity network, visible disassemblable connections and materials and objects sustainable for further reuse is already a known design language owned by the interior studio.
Most of the materials used - from the glass partitions to the wall cladding made from old theater and school chairs - already had a first life, as did the furniture. “Compared to conventional construction methods, we have saved 82% of CO2 emissions and 32% of water through reuse.“ says Sven Urselmann.
Many innovative details were created in terms to achieve circularity. Main motto of urselmann interior is "design follows availability". Rethinking classical objects in order to use existing available materials.
Example: wall cladding created from old theatre and school chairs. Altogether 550 chair seats and backrests were used. Division shelving system was made of old cable trays with connection parts specially designed and 3D printed from compostable biomass plastic. The same goes for workshop tables made of scaffolding structures.
The AWM Project by urselmann interior is beneficial to the planet.
We follow the Antonio Guterres statement, “We are in a race to zero (emissions)”. Therefore, we fully rethink the way we design and build interiors.
“The construction sector plays a key role when it comes to avoiding waste, conserving resources and preventing CO2 emissions,” says Sven Urselmann, owner of urselmann interior (ui). For the ui team, one thing is clear: “The Cradle to Cradle school of thought and design, the scaling of reusable building materials and craftsmanship are our answer to the necessary building transformation."
To achieve comfortable and healthy working environment in the new offices of AWM urselmann interior worked with natural materials as hempcrete bricks and wooden structure (from reused wood) with clay panels for division walls and clay plaster as wall finishes. The glass wall partitions are urban mined (with the help of Concular platform) from a public building in Düsseldorf planned for reconstruction in the near future.
We need to end wasting materials and reduce CO2 emissions as fast as possible.
Our first milestone is zero emissions, before we enter the phase of regeneration. Regeneration is possible through an extensive use of natural materials, which bind CO2 while growing, such as hempcrete, clay panels, linoleum floors, acoustic wood
fiber board.
In numbers a whole-life cycle assessment of the construction project demonstrated the following savings:
13.32 tons of CO² eq or 82% compared to conventional construction methods
6.9 tons of recycled materials - the same amount of waste was saved
95.6% of all products used are c2c certified, inspired or reused
© Magdalena Gruber / Petra Jablonicka
